You can do much more damage with wands because you can actually attack from range and with staves the ability that you get with em is just not worth it, i don't see any benefit from equiping a staff instead of 2 wands, nothing.

Staves can take advantage of the "Opportunist" talent. Which can be quite big in some casesWith a stave, you can also attack from range (one time per turn, but if you are a caster, that's usually more than enough)

minor: If you put points in 2h instead of dual wield, you get more crit damage as well instead of dodge

Staves can take advantage of the "Opportunist" talent. Which can be quite big in some casesWith a stave, you can also attack from range (one time per turn, but if you are a caster, that's usually more than enough)

minor: If you put points in 2h instead of dual wield, you get more crit damage as well instead of dodge

Wands are hands down a better option in terms of damage, if staves are not good at that they should give other benefits, what you just said is terrible and not worth it.

You can use some other rather interesting skills with staves though, like the Warfare skills. I have two points in Warfare and can use things like whirlwind, battle stomp, and pheonix dive.. and all do fire damage, benefit from points in pyro, and scale from intelligence instead of strength. Just noticed this a little while ago and am still experimenting with it, but it's pretty sweet. Vastly expands the potential spellbook for any mage.

Wands don't let you use those skills, because they're not melee weapons.

I'm not sure I understand why people are thinking wands are so superior. Staves get larger bonuses (wands currently have +1 int max in my game, while staves all have +2) so they're fairly even in that regard. The only difference I see between them is that wands can do the "normal" attack at a range, while staves have to melee (unless they use the ranged ability).

Why does that even matter though? I don't think I've used my "normal" attack more than once or twice in the entire game, much as I did in the original D:OS. Spells do so much more, and they're not reliant on weapon damage one iota. If anything, staves give access to a larger array of abilities (which are reliant on the staff damage), and seem superior to me.

But how are wands better? I keep seeing people claiming this as if it's just common knowledge, but I don't see any reason why that is the case. I'm not playing any sort of hybrid either, as the warfare/scoundrel abilities all convert to use intellect and scale with your "mage" abilities like pyro.

By putting a couple of points into those abilities you lose a small percentage of your damage, and you'll need to put a few more points into memory to really make use of the added abilities (and take the accompanying int loss).. but to me it's worth it. Whirlwind can drop a huge fire AoE around my pyromancer, without damaging anyone friendly. Battle Stomp can do the same, knock down enemies, and clear away unwanted surfaces. Pheonix Dive + The Pawn + Elemental Affinity lets me teleport almost anywhere on the field, summon fire surfaces, move into those fire surfaces (for free), and now be able to cast fire abilities for a point less.. all for a single point. That's pretty damn hard to beat.

But how are wands better? I keep seeing people claiming this as if it's just common knowledge, but I don't see any reason why that is the case. I'm not playing any sort of hybrid either, as the warfare/scoundrel abilities all convert to use intellect and scale with your "mage" abilities like pyro.

By putting a couple of points into those abilities you lose a small percentage of your damage, and you'll need to put a few more points into memory to really make use of the added abilities (and take the accompanying int loss).. but to me it's worth it. Whirlwind can drop a huge fire AoE around my pyromancer, without damaging anyone friendly. Battle Stomp can do the same, knock down enemies, and clear away unwanted surfaces. Pheonix Dive + The Pawn + Elemental Affinity lets me teleport almost anywhere on the field, summon fire surfaces, move into those fire surfaces (for free), and now be able to cast fire abilities for a point less.. all for a single point. That's pretty damn hard to beat.

poison explosion wands are absurd early game, and late game water + electricity transform into a range stunner as if youre firing an electric discharge with every attack. Not to mention X2 stats.

[quote=Zherot]Well basically then staves are for "battle mages" or hybrids then because a ranged mage is much better with wands, really stupid considering Staff is the iconic weapon for a mage. [/quote]

Which weapon is "the iconic" one is up for debate.In the world of Divinity, I would say it's a wand, after reading this threadIn Lord of the Rings, it's a staff - then again, Gandalf used a sword when fighting...In Harry Potter it's a wand

I like staves better than wands myself, thematically, but every new fantasy world have a phase where I need to adapt my preconceptions.I found it weird that a fighter had earth magic for instanceOr that you dual wield wands.Lizards being nobility List goes on... point is: Calling it stupid isn't helping anyone. Especially when the argumentation for it being stupid is highly subjective.

Love the tips people came with. Warfare skills that do magic damage :D

You get access to Warfare skills like Phoenix Dive or various knockdowns also you can stack Crit damage with two handed ability and combo it with savage talent that gives Crit to spells.

On my Fire/Earth wizard if I manage to pull out spikes and fireball combo with some crits it absolutely decimates, easily strip all magic armor AoE from most targets in one combo and apply burn. He has like 30% Crit chance and Crit rolls per each AoE target individually so you will surely get crits up.

Lazer crit for example is about 400+ damage at level 12 and area is huge, way more than my Ranger can do with anything in AoE and Spikes/Fireball combo easily more than that with some luck.

You get access to Warfare skills like Phoenix Dive or various knockdowns also you can stack Crit damage with two handed ability and combo it with savage talent that gives Crit to spells.

On my Fire/Earth wizard if I manage to pull out spikes and fireball combo with some crits it absolutely decimates, easily strip all magic armor AoE from most targets in one combo and apply burn. He has like 30% Crit chance and Crit rolls per each AoE target individually so you will surely get crits up.

Lazer crit for example is about 400+ damage at level 12 and area is huge, way more than my Ranger can do with anything in AoE and Spikes/Fireball combo easily more than that with some luck.

Just joined the forums so that i could add my comments as well. I went 2h and staves with high int for a skull bashing battlemage but something i noticed that has changed since alpha is that staves magic dmg type no longer applies status as it used to where it seems wands still do. ex. You have a poison wand and attack a mob whos magic armor is down. you will apply poison.in the same scenario with a staff be it melee or the staff of magus attack i do not see it applying poison.

Staves can take advantage of the "Opportunist" talent. Which can be quite big in some casesWith a stave, you can also attack from range (one time per turn, but if you are a caster, that's usually more than enough)

minor: If you put points in 2h instead of dual wield, you get more crit damage as well instead of dodge

Wands are hands down a better option in terms of damage, if staves are not good at that they should give other benefits, what you just said is terrible and not worth it.

I've come across a unique wand (gold item) sold in Driftwood that had +2 INT, btw, so its possible to find wands with more than 1 INT.

Just joined the forums so that i could add my comments as well. I went 2h and staves with high int for a skull bashing battlemage but something i noticed that has changed since alpha is that staves magic dmg type no longer applies status as it used to where it seems wands still do. ex. You have a poison wand and attack a mob whos magic armor is down. you will apply poison.in the same scenario with a staff be it melee or the staff of magus attack i do not see it applying poison.

Has anyone else noticed this?

I don't know about that i tell you later since i do have a poison staff and i will test this but i can tell you that i was healing undeads when using it, will come back after i test this when i play.

While you CAN use Warfare skills with a Staff, it runs afoul of not being able to break Physical Armor for the various effects like knockdown and the like. So it's not AS good as it sounds.

Some skills in Huntsman, Scoundrel and Warfare don't care about your weapon equipped. Adrenaline can be used with any weapon (as an example).

Most Warfare skills require either a melee weapon (which includes staff and dagger) or a shield however. Just like most Scoundrel skills require a dagger and most Huntsman skills require a Bow / Crossbow.